awkward feelings for today

9/11 is always a weird date.  The world trade centers are always a weird place for me.

My friends always want to go there when they visit, and tour companies always want me to lead tours there.

I always feel awkward because I feel like I'm supposed to feel all these emotions that I just don't feel.  I don't well up with tears at the thought of our fallen heroes.  I don't swell with hate at our enemies.  I don't feel an incredible sense of national pride for how we ROSE ABOVE IT ALL and came out more unified than ever.

I feel like tragedies happen every day - why do we care more about this one than others?

I feel like when we say "never forget" what we mean is "never forget to hate our enemies" of which I believe nothing good will come.  (I mean - maybe they don't deserve to be invited over for a potluck dinner, but remembering to hate is just - not a good thing.)

I feel people prove themselves heroic every day - in many ways.  And they never get recognition.

And I don't feel we rose above it all.  We didn't even initially go after the right people.  We injected ourselves with fear - but gave the Bin Ladens diplomatic immunity.  Our country is far more divided on issues now than it was 11 years ago.  In many ways he was regressed.

Maybe I just feel this way because it was also my dog's birthday.

I also saw how my friends who lived in NYC at the time were effected.  It wasn't pretty.

I do send love and healing thoughts into the world, and I respect people's feelings and emotions - whatever they might be.

And I think it bothers me everyone is posting about it on Facebook and crying and sobbing and "remembering."  By why feel more pride TODAY than any other day. Shouldn't we ALWAYS love our country?  Shouldn't we ALWAYS love our city?  Shouldn't we ALWAYS honor EVERY hero?

It reminds me of a passage from Ibsen's BRAND:

It isn't love of pleasure that is destroying us.
It would be better if it were.
Enjoy life if you will.
But be consistent, do it all the time,
Not one thing one day and another the next.
Be wholly what you are, not half and half.
Everyone now is a little of everything.
A little solemn on Sundays, a little respectful
towards tradition; makes love to his wife after Saturday
Supper; because his father did the same.
A little gay at feasts.  A little lavish
in giving promises, but niggardly
In fulfilling them; a little of everything;
A little sin, a little virtue;
A little good, a little evil; the one
Destroys the other, and every man is nothing.